Yoshihiro Kuroiwa

Yoshihiro Kuroiwa (aka 黒岩よしひろ or Kuroiwa Yoshihiro), born in 1962 in Nagano, the capital of the Nagano Prefecture in Japan, was a Japanese family man, who had a wife and children. He worked as a mangaka. On May 8, 2018, he passed away due to a heart attack.

Yoshihiro Kuroiwa had the bloodtype 0 and had always done his best to follow the footsteps of the famous mangaka Yuuki Rin, both of whom had chosen Ecchi as the main genre for the representation of their works.

His other works were settled in the genre of mystery, dictionaries featuring photographs and other special types of subjects. Most of these works had been released via the publisher Shueisha.

His most well known masterpiece and all-time favorite of his fanbase, though, has been the series 鬼神童子 ZENKI (Kishin Douji Zenki).

His role in the KDZ Team and the making of KDZ


Yoshihiro Kuroiwa was not only the artist, who created all the artwork seen in the Manga, the anime, the games and the OVA, but also the mastermind behind the creation of the original Kishin Douji Zenki series.

Before he made his first contact with Kikuhide Tani, Yoshihiro Kuroiwa had already created Zenki's and Chiaki Enno's designs and characters.

At first, Yoshihiro Kuroiwa started creating Kishin Douji Zenki as a novel and had already created the cover for it, but then decided to turn into a manga instead. This lead to him contacting Kikuhide Tani and telling him about his idea.

Kikuhide Tani replied, that he wanted to make detailed settings based on Kishin Douji Zenki. Soon enough, Yoshihiro Kuroiwa created the original draft and started working on the prototype of the Kishin Douji Zenki manga.

He scrapped it, but rereleased it later as a bonus chapter of the actual Kishin Douji Zenki manga as we know it.

Due to Kikuhide Tani being unable to participate, the first volume of the manga and the first episode of the anime series were completely made by Yoshihiro Kuroiwa on his own.

Starting from the second volume of the manga and the second episode of the anime, he was being joined by Kikuhide Tani.

This information was originally published by Yoshihiro Kuroiwa, who, as such, is the original creator of the Kishin Douji Zenki series.

As for the author comment section drawings, only the ones depicting his colleague Kikuhide Tani and the photographs of the original Kishin Douji Zenki team weren't made by Yoshihiro Kuroiwa.

His cultural influence
Yoshihiro Kuroiwa once had the great honor to become an assistant to the famous mangaka Katsura Masakazu, during the latter's work on a short story called ビューティビースト (Beauty Beast) in 1983. This short story marked Shueisha's entry in 1983's 26th Tezuka convention alongside the partial short story 舞子ミステリアス (Maiko Mysterious) for the Fresh Jump Awards following Shueisha's flagship journal "Weekly Shonen Jump"'s official departure.

Outside from Katsura Masakazu's influence on his works, Yoshihiro Kuroiwa also wrote a book about self defense, that received a honorable poster, which was featured in Kenya and Australia, but was overshadowed by a well received work, which came out at rougly the same time.

This work was his series "Kishin Douji Zenki", which he had been working on alongside his colleague Kikuhide Tani and which had then been released from 1992 to 1996 via the "Weekly Shonen Jump".

Other than that, the series has also been released as the only major work by the Tokyo Television Network Co., Ltd. (aka "TV Tokyo") in 1995 as an anime series of the same name.

After Shonen Jump's separation from Shueisha in 2000, Yoshihiro Kuroiwa continued to create manga and anime for both young and adult readers and viewers, most of which are classics by now.

A list of his works
This list gives a short overview of Yoshihiro Kuroiwa's works.

Manga

 * サスケ忍伝 (Sasuke Ninden / Sasuke Ninbutsu)
 * "Weekly Shonen Jump", 32nd - 41st week of the year 1986, 1 volume, publisher: Shueisha
 * 魔神竜バリオン (Mashin Ryū Barion / Machine Dragon Barion)
 * "Weekly Shonen Jump", 22nd - 32nd week of the year 1987, 1 volume, publisher: Shueisha
 * 変幻戦忍アスカ (Hengen Sennin Asuka / Fantasy Fight Ninja Asuka)
 * "Weekly Shonen Jump", 23rd - 40th week of the year 1988, 2 volumes, publisher: Shueisha
 * 不思議ハンター (Fushigi Hunter / Mystery Hunter)
 * "Weekly Shonen Jump", 32nd - 48th week of the year 1990, 2 volumes, original work by: Yukihiro Iizuka, publisher: Shueisha
 * 不思議ハンター Special (Fushigi Hunter Special / Mystery Hunter Special)
 * "Weekly Shonen Jump", an extra publication of the year 1989, 2 volumes, publisher: Shueisha
 * 鬼神童子ZENKI (Kishin Douji Zenki / Demon God Child Zenki)
 * "Monthly Shonen Jump", December 1992 - September 1996, 12 volumes / 7 volumes (rerelease), original work by: Yoshihiro Kuroiwa, publisher: Shueisha
 * 流星超人ズバーン (Ryūsei chōjin zubān / Ryuusei Choujin Zuban)
 * "Monthly Shonen Jump", May 1998 - April 1999, 3 volumes, publisher: Shueisha
 * 怪奇まんだら (Kaiki Mandara / Mysterious Mandala)
 * "Monthly Shonen Jump", August 2000 - March 2001, 2 volumes, publisher: Shueisha
 * ベイブレード大戦 聖龍伝 (Beyblade Taisen Seiryuuden / Beyblade Holy Dragonlord Competition)
 * "Books for 3rd and 4th graders / elementary school students", 2001 - 2003, 2 volumes, publisher: Shogakukan
 * ふわふわ (Fuwafuwa / Fluffy)
 * 2003 - 2006, 5 volumes, publisher: Takeshobo
 * 漫畫ACTION (Manga Action)
 * Issued on March 27, 2004, 1 volume, publisher: Shobu company
 * 永遠のそら (Eien no Sora / Eternal Sky)
 * Issued on March 28, 2005, 1 volume, publisher: Juvenile breaking news agency
 * おうたま (Ōtama / Ootama)
 * Adult manga, released on April 19, 2005, 1 volume, publisher: core magazine
 * 魔法連者 THE MOVIE 地獄魔人的新娘 (Mahō ren-sha THE MOVIE jigoku majin-teki shin musume / Magical Soldier THE MOVIE the Devilman's new daughter)
 * Special manga collection (KADOKAWA COMICS Special A), issued on March 1, 2006, Tokusatsu ACE magazine issues 11 - 14, 1 volume, original work by: Toei, publisher: Kadokawa Shoten
 * ステージガールズ (Sutējigāruzu / Stage Girls)
 * Comic GUMBO, January 23, 2007 - December 11, 2007, 2 volumes, original work by: Asami Kaminoge, publisher: Sankei Shinbun publishing)
 * ふぃぎゅあ こととねシークレット (Fuigyua koto to ne shikuretto / I and that figure's secret)
 * Issued in October 2007, 1 volume, publisher: Takeshobo
 * マクロスF 超次空歌巫女ランカ (Makurosu efu chō ji sora uta miko Ranka / Macross Frontier - The miko Ranka's Song of the Heavens / Macross Frontier)
 * "Monthly Comp Ace", April - July 2008, 1 volume, publisher: Kadokawa Shoten
 * The short series later got adapted into an anime.
 * バディスピリッツ (BUDDY Spirits / Buddy Spirits)
 * Composition of Takeshi, "Monthly Hero's", February 2012 - June 2014, 6 volumes, original work by: Miyuki Kishimoto, publisher: Shogakukan)

One shots

 * ガールズインユニフォーム (Girls In Uniform)
 * People Setting

Short story collections

 * 黒岩よしひろ短編集 夢語り (Kuroiwa Yoshihiro tanhenshū yumegatari / Yoshihiro Kuroiwa short edited dream talk / Kimichi Yoshihiro)
 * September 1986, publisher: Shueisha Creative
 * "Kimichi Yoshihiro" is a collection of short stories related to dreams, that were written down by Yoshihiro Kuroiwa.

Gallery
This gallery covers all images showing Yoshihiro Kuroiwa alone or alongside the other members of the KDZ team. It also included his self portraits from the Kishin Douji Zenki manga's author comment sections.

In General
(infobox and "His role in the KDZ Team"-section) and writing the original, Japanese article on UpClosed
 * Gokimaru - general overview regarding his work about the Kishin Douji Zenki series
 * Translated the biography featured in the link below from Japanese to English
 * UpClosed (upclosed.com) - biography (Japanese)
 * Thanks to Masakazu Katsura and Koji Putin for their research on Yoshihiro Kuroiwa
 * Zenki, Vasara - adding a gallery featuring the author comment sections' images
 * First hand report from Takasi Tono, who was in direct contact with Yoshihiro Kuroiwa via Twitter
 * The original source of her report was an interview with Yoshihiro Kuroiwa himself from back in 2008

Death Report

 * On May 16, 2018, Yoshihiro Kuroiwa's wife reported his death via his Twitter account
 * Citation from the source:
 * 黒岩よしひろの妻です. 大切なお知らせがあります.  ２０１８年５月８日、夫の黒岩よしひろが心筋梗塞のため 永眠いたしました.  すぐにお伝えしなければと思いましたが、ご報告が遅くなりました.  詳しいお知らせはブログをご覧ください
 * Translated: "It is Yoshihiro Kuroiwa's wife. There are important news. On May 8, 2018, my husband, Yoshihiro Kuroiwa, has passed away due to myocardial infarction. I thought I should report it soon, but the report was delayed. Please see the blog for detailed information"
 * The blog she mentioned can be found here

Trivia

 * Over at his social media accounts, he was also known as "Yoshi Kuroiwa"/"Kuroiwa Yoshi", with "Yoshi" being short for "Yoshihiro".
 * Reference (his twitter account)